~ Historical cooking

Forest walk with Merry Swan

A week ago on Saturday our group Merry Swan had an outdoor day at forest. The purpose of the outdoor day was to hang together, walk in a forest, to pick mushrooms for dyeing and to have a nice picnic. We were very lucky with the weather that day. The day before was stormy but Saturday morning the storm was gone and sun was shining nicely. Perfect day for to spend at forest!
Some part of the walk was pretty easy because of the road
At picnic we had bread, smoked ham, cheese, almonds, apples and mushroom pies (recipe at the end of this post)
Elina getting ready to eat
Pia, Riku and Elina eating and Eikka the dog watching closely
Antti resting after eating
Mervi found nice amount of mushrooms and Tikru the dog was helping
And here we go back

After walking we decided to take some group pictures. Sun was already setting and it was really beautiful. Pictures by Antti Kuparinen:

I decided to do mushroom pies for the picnic. They are very well known for many. The recipe is from Le Menagier de Paris (end of 14th century). Same recipe but a bit different alteration of it can be found in our book Saffron Eggs and Almond milk. This recipe is for bigger and more filling pies. The dough used for these pies is an alteration of a dough Mervi blogged and what we made at Ronneburg Castle.

Mushroom pies

Mushrooms one night old are the best. They are little and red inside, closed at the top. Peel and then wash them in hot water and boil. If you want to put them in pastry, add oil, cheese and powdered spices.

Heat the milk and melt the butter in it. Let it cool a bit and knead the flours little by little to the dough. Let the dough rest and make the filling. Fry cleaned and chopped mushrooms gently in a bit of oil until the water has come out and add the spices. Add salt if needed and more spices. Let the mushrooms cool and add the grated Gouda cheese. Roll out the dough and cut rounds by using small wooden bowl. Put the rounds into the wooden bowl and pinch the edges a bit over the bowl edges. Add couple tablespoons of filling on top of the dough. Cut smaller round pastry sheet on top of the filling and pinch the edges of the pie on top of the lid. Make a small hole on top of the pie. Carefully remove the made pie from the wooden bowl on top of the baking dish. Bake them in oven in 225 Celsius degree about 20-30 minutes or until the pies are golden brown.

About the blog

This blog is all about historical cooking, mainly focusing on the medieval and renaissance periods. I hope you'll get inspired and see that cooking is fun and easy. The modernized recipes are only my suggestions, so feel free to try out and make your own! This blog and material is in English and in Finnish.
Check out the upper bar of this page! You can find all the recipes there :) enjoy!